For those of you that enjoy Peonie's, this is my backyard in late May early June.
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It's sunny today... We have severe weather coming in from the west. It will be raining in a few hours. My back yard still has most of the peonies. We split the roots last fall and gave some plants away. All the plants and trees are of championship grade. My father in-law use to raise and show them. The only thing is if it rains when the pedals are open the flower gets trashed. The photos are of 62 plants from June of 2002.

The ants hang out until the pedal opens, then the go to the next bulb. You still have to shake the flower before bringing it into the house. To get large flowers like 6-8" across you need to dis-bud the stem. That means that you need to take off all satellite buds so only the largest bud is on the stem.
That way all the nutrients gets to the one bud and thus it grows bigger.

Jerbear, an afficionado of the genus Paeonia...will the wonders never cease - you are a true renaissance man after all! As it's not _really_ peony time yet, until another week or so, I suspect you are really getting jazzed up about now.

If you could hybridize one that had stiffer blooming stems, and rebloomed in the fall, the world would beat a path to your door.

Is that a wisteria vine crawling up the right hand side of your first photo? Got any pictures of that one in bloom?

PS - Jerbear, site rules require that you post an affadavit with any Peony photos, attesting that no illegal aliens were employed in the propagation, production, distribution, or growing of these plants.

The killer gators got one of our locals that went to florida last week end she was the 23 year old that went to colledge in my town but lived about 20 mies sout in TN.

KY: Former MSU Student Killed by Alligator

Associated Press contributed to this report

Monday, May 15, 2006

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Authorities say the bodies of two women, both apparently killed by alligators, were found today.

Wildlife officials Annmarie Campbell,23, most recently of Paris, Tennessee, was attacked while snorkeling in a secluded recreation area near Lake George. The lake is about 50 miles southeast of Gainesville.

Campbell was pronounced dead at the scene. Her stepfather, who had tried to help her, was treated on the scene for a hand injury.

I can't think about Peonies without remembering once when I was ten or so I brought a nice bunch in for my Grandma and laid them on the table. Well there was a freshly iced white cake about a foot away. I went looking for Gran, and not five minutes elapsed and that cake was covered in wiggly brown sprinkles. Those peonies must have been full what we call sugar ants.
Jan

buzzgun... Here are some pics of today 5 mins ago. The tree peonies started to bloom about a week ago due to all of the rain we have had. 2 of my tree peonies are almost 5' tall. My father in-law was on the BOD for the American Peony Society.

I have been told that in order to bloom the ants help by chewing on the covers making it easier to open... I do have a small problem.. Moved to a house that was vacant for 6 months.... Had a terrible ant problem. Dealt with the problem with chemical warfare. Then as the plants started to grow I discovered that there was lots of Peonies.....There are some ants on them ...... I just hope they bloom....later geepee